Advances in Educational Research and Evaluation

Sounding out Semantics: The Limits of Philosophy

Wei Xu, Zhengying Luo — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 09:05:35 +0800

By advocating a “non-semantic” perspective of words as conditioned acoustic symbols rather than fixed representations, this book challenges the mainstream philosophy of language. It critiques the dualism and literalism that underpin linguistic theory, arguing that meaning emerges from usage, not semantics. In seven chapters, original frameworks aim to provide more accurate analyses of contextual human symbol use, which resolve enduring puzzles in the philosophy of language, mathematics, and epistemology. It is acknowledged in the book that discussing language using language itself is inherently difficult. This unified theory rejecting semantic assumptions could significantly transform the understanding of language acquisition, communication across cultures, and biases embedded in linguistic symbols if empirically validated. This seminal contribution provides valuable new insights into the emergence of meaning in human thought and communication by emphasizing conditioned usage and over-representation. In this review, we summarize the philosophy and significance of the book, and discuss its contribution to the field of study.

From a teacher education course to upper elementary classrooms and back: Revealing innate abilities of children to do teachers' mathematics

Sergei Abramovich, Laura L. Griffin — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 14:21:47 +0800

One of the key ideas of the modern-day elementary mathematics teacher education deals with mediating learning by visual thinking to enable transition from seeing and acting on concrete objects to describing the visual and the physical through culturally accepted symbolic representations. This paper shares mathematical activities designed originally for teacher candidates and used with students in upper elementary classrooms at a school in Upstate New York with minority student enrollment 97%. Because successful use of conceptual thinking by young students does have positive impact on their future teachers, connection of work in the school to a master’s level elementary mathematics education course taught by the authors is discussed. It is shown how using a spreadsheet and Wolfram Alpha allows for the research-like extension of the activities to the secondary level of mathematics education.

Impact of investment in EdTech: Government and entrepreneurial partnership venture in education in North and West Africa

Michael Uche Udanoh, Ayoub Zouria — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 13:32:51 +0800

The educational landscape in North and West Africa stands to gain significant advantages through collaborative government-entrepreneurial investments in Educational Technology (EdTech). The establishment of public-private partnerships plays a pivotal role in effectively infusing technology into education systems, thereby enhancing student accessibility, improving educational quality, and fostering better learning outcomes. Beyond its immediate impact on education, EdTech investments also hold the potential to stimulate economic growth. Moreover, these investments can nurture a pool of indigenous entrepreneurs armed with expertise in both business and information technology, thereby contributing to the expansion of the EdTech sector. This burgeoning sector, prevalent in emerging regions, becomes a magnet for foreign investments, effectively bolstering national economies and creating ripple effects across diverse industries. Such synergistic collaborations within the EdTech sphere underscore the political commitment of governments toward the advancement of education. This dedication resonates on a global scale, attracting the attention of international organizations and donor nations, as investing in education for sustainable development fosters not only improved socio-economic conditions but also favorable diplomatic relationships. This research investigates the impact of collaborative EdTech investments between governments and entrepreneurial entities on the education. By examining specific case studies within North and West Africa, namely Ghana, Nigeria, Morocco, and Algeria, it becomes evident that technology-driven educational reforms can lead to profound improvements in accessibility, educational quality, economic growth, and even political alliances. Through a comprehensive exploration of the interplay between government initiatives and entrepreneurial endeavors, this review paper delves into the multifaceted outcomes of EdTech investments across these nations.

Language and social minds: The semantics and pragmatics of intersubjectivity

Yizhou Jin, Wei Xu — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 09:55:43 +0800

This book provides a gradient model of intersubjectivity and social cognition in language. Through an interdisciplinary synthesis, the author proposes three levels of linguistic acts: those aimed at the speaker’s benefit alone, those expressing concern for an interlocutor, and those indicating concern for societal reactions. There is a continuum of egocentric to extended intersubjectivity, which includes co-actionality, immediate intersubjectivity, and collective constructions. The model is applied to study children’s mastery of intersubjective polysemy and verbal organization, and to determine “social mind” capabilities in autism spectrum disorders. While non-linguistic topics and further empirical validation are outside the scope, this innovative interdisciplinary approach meaningfully extends understanding of the intertwined nature of language, cognition, and social engagement.

The tower of teaching-learning interactions in online live classes: Considering the impact of class size

Xiaojie Niu — Wed, 31 May 2023 09:38:37 +0800

During the COVID-19 pandemic, online learning has become an important and widely used form of education. Many studies have pointed out that interaction is key to online learning. The Interaction Hierarchy Theory categorizes interactions in remote teaching into three types: operational, informational, and conceptual. Operational interaction serves as the foundation for all types of interactions and refers to the interface interactions that learners engage in at the behavioral level through the use of media features and tools in online learning. However, should we simply encourage higher intensity operational interaction? Specifically, live teaching, as a form of remote teaching, has a higher sense of immediacy and synchronicity compared to asynchronous learning. Should we encourage and guide students to engage in more operational interaction during live teaching? How would it affect learners' informational and conceptual interactions? In this study, 137 students from 21 live classes were grouped according to class size and operational interaction intensity, and their levels of informational and conceptual interaction were explored. The results showed that the conceptual interaction intensity of learners in live teaching was higher than the informational interaction intensity, and operational interaction intensity and class size both had an impact on informational interaction, but a weaker impact on conceptual interaction. Operational interaction can affect conceptual interaction through informational interaction, especially through the mediation of student-resource informational interaction. The contribution of this study lies in verifying the establishment of the interaction hierarchy tower in the live teaching scene, that is, there are three different levels of interactive influence chains from operational interaction, informational interaction and conceptual interaction. Operational interaction and class size have a strong influence on information interaction directly and conceptual interaction indirectly. In online learning aiming at high-level interaction such as conceptual interaction, designers should not blindly promote operational interaction, but should pay attention to the promoting effect of operational interaction on informational interaction, and the operational interaction without effect on learners' informational interaction is invalid. In addition to enhancing operational interaction, controlling class size is also a way to facilitate informational interaction.

Advancing the concept of triangulation from social sciences research to mathematics education

Sergei Abramovich — Wed, 26 Oct 2022 14:20:32 +0800

The paper suggests interpreting the term triangulation, commonly used in social science research, as multiple ways of solving a problem in the context of mathematics education. The availability of different technological tools provides new perspectives on problem solving as modeling from where ideas for problem posing stem. Using topics from geometry and trigonometry, triangulation is considered through lens of teacher education. Reflections by teacher candidates on activities which are shared and reviewed in the paper indicate future teachers’ readiness to implement the pedagogy of triangulated perspectives on problem solving and posing in their own mathematics classrooms.

The use of GoSoapBox for teaching and learning

Kwong Nui Sim — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 15:37:43 +0800

The complexity of relationships between teaching and learning practices is increasing as we rethink higher education in the age of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The availabilities and capabilities of ICT tools enable us to explore the process of teaching and learning in a more unconventional manner. This paper seeks to share an online ICT tool, GoSoapBox, that comprises three key pedagogical ideas in teaching and learning: student interaction (via Discussion), student engagement (via Quiz), and student evaluation (via Poll). While the emphasis is not on advocating the ICT product, the recognition of the affordances of this suggested tool is significant in ensuring the pedagogical ideas could be achieved. Apart from the fundamental benefits that GoSoapBox could offer, the paper also outlines innovative ideas that could advance the process of teaching and learning by adopting the proposed tool in the classroom, including the positive sharing from the academics who had used this tool before, as well as the limitations of the tool which need to be aware of when using it for academic purposes. The paper concludes that constant analysis of practices drives the improvement of teaching and learning processes, with the possibility of incorporating a suitable ICT tool to make this process more efficient and effective.

Reflecting on the first two years of journal AERE

Sergei Abramovich — Thu, 09 Dec 2021 13:50:27 +0800

To conclude my reflections on the first two years of AERE, I would like to encourage our authors to continue supporting the journal by publishing with us their wonderful papers and, as a way of expanding coverage to new disciplines and subject matters, to welcome high-quality submissions from STEM education researchers.

Como una flor/like a flower, we bloom: Memories along the community college pathway

Jesus Jaime-Diaz, Josie Méndez-Negrete — Mon, 30 Aug 2021 09:16:50 +0800

Previous studies on Mexican American students in community college have demonstrated a sense of resilience in completing their studies. However, such studies have been student-centric in advising that cultural capital be utilized in fostering student success. In this article, we advise the incorporation of pedagogical conocimientos as a tool for the professional development of faculty, staff and administrators in humanizing the community college experience. The findings in this article explore ways in which three students draw upon their memories in furthering their education. We analyze how students make sense of lived experiences and transmit them into their educational trajectory.

Teachers’ self-efficacy: Associations with teacher and student characteristics and effects of the anger management intervention, the Mini-Diamond

Janni Niclasen, Thea Toft Amholt, Rhonwyn Carter, Jesper Dammeyer — Fri, 16 Jul 2021 11:43:32 +0800

Teacher self-efficacy (TSE) is the term used for teachers’ beliefs about their capacity to positively influence students’ learning and social environment. How TSE influences incidences of teacher burnout and student academic achievement has been the focus of previous research. Studies investigating the associations between TSE and socio-demographic characteristics are sparse, and little is known about the possible effects of school-based interventions on TSE. In order to address these areas of research, the aims of this study were twofold. First, the study examined associations between TSE and a) teachers’ socio-demographic characteristics, and b) student’s school-related well-being. Secondly, we investigated the effect of a school-based angermanagement intervention, the Mini-Diamond, on TSE. Students from grades 0 to 2 and their teachers, from all schools in two Danish municipalities, participated in the study. Teachers completed two questionnaires, including the Danish version of the Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale and a questionnaire on socio-demographic characteristics. All students filled out a school well-being questionnaire. The questionnaires were completed prior to and after the intervention. Positive associations were found between TSE and teachers’ age, showing that the older the teacher, the higher the TSE. Furthermore, positive associations between TSE and years of experience, as well as TSE and students’ school connectedness, were found. No effects were found of the school intervention on TSE.